Your dad found a guy who could play the keyboard, but I still went on stage to sing. The bars that booked us had booked us because of the demo that had us performing together. They’d booked both of us. So I sang. I sang backup, I sang harmonies your dad wrote for me. I sang in our duet finale, which was a hit every night. I was performing, but I felt weird without an instrument, wrong. When I told your dad, he gave me a tambourine. I felt even weirder with the tambourine.

Also, the keyboardist was a jerk. I’m not just saying that. He really was. He showed up late for call, he took smoke breaks instead of hanging out with the rest of the guys. No one liked him, even if he was a great musician. Your dad and I were both counting down the days until my cast came off. I kept thinking that once it did, everything would go back to normal. I would be happier, your dad would chill out a little, things would be the way they were before. Of course, we hadn’t figured out what came next, what the next year would look like, whether I would stay in school, but we were so focused on my hand getting better that we couldn’t see that far.

—

“You’ll need some physical therapy,” the doctor told me when he took the cast off.

Underneath the fiberglass, my arm and hand had atrophied. It looked small and pale and weak next to my other hand.

“I’m ready to work,” I told him.

“That’s my queen,” your dad said.

And I did work. I worked so hard.

But a body can only heal so much, so fast.

20

Two days later, Emily could tell that Ezra was irritated that she still hadn’t gone back to work. It wasn’t what she expected from him. And she wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

“This isn’t good for you,” he said. “You can’t wallow. Your patients need you. Once you’re there, you’ll forget. It’ll be so much easier. Seriously, I know what I’m talking about.”

“Next week,” Emily said. She was beginning her third reread of The Red Tent. She knew what she was talking about, too. And while she respected intellectually that Ezra dealt with loss and grief differently than she did, she couldn’t help but feel hurt that he wasn’t more upset, that he said she was wallowing. Their baby had died. Inside her. She needed time to mourn. And he was acting like it was just a blip on the radar. To her, it felt like a jet fighter had just dropped a bomb on their city.

“Don’t forget my parents are coming,” Ezra said. “For the hospital fund-raiser.”